"Acting should be bigger than life. Scripts should be bigger than life. It should all be bigger than life."

Ruth Elizabeth Davis (April 5, 1908 – October 6, 1989), was a great American actress of stage, screen and television.

Alternately referred to as the "Queen of Hollywood" or the "First Lady of the Screen," Bette Davis for a time held the record most Oscar nominations (11) for Best Actress, since broken by Katharine Hepburn (12).

To this day, Bette Davis remains one of the most lauded and idolized stars in film history, having been the subject of one of the most successful #1 songs of pop history, "Bette Davis Eyes" (1981), as well as becoming the first woman to serve as president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. She was the first actress to receive the Lifetime Achievement Award (1979) from the American Film Institute, which in 1999 voted her the second greatest female film legend of all-time.

According to respected film historian and critic Leonard Maltin "by the time she died Davis had won a status enjoyed by no other Hollywood actress" and many fans and film professionals still consider her the best screen actress of all time.